Reishi Mostly a medicinal mushroom. Reishi is used as a daily tonic to maintain and improve good health, increasing longevity, in the treatment of cancer and resistance to and recovery from diseases.

It is rarely found in nature, and has been used as a herbal medicine for more than 4,000 years in traditional Chinese medicine, making it the oldest mushroom known to have been used in medicine.

Lingzhi is the Chinese name (or Japanese: 'Reishi') for one form of the mushroom Ganoderma Lucidum. 'Lingzhi', in Chinese, means "herb of spiritual potency", and because of its multiple health benefits and absence of side-effects, it has attained an unparalleled reputation in the East as the ultimate herbal substance. It is said that for thousands of years, lingzhi was the most sought-after herb by mountain sages and emperors and empresses of China and Japan. Lingzhi has now been added to the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia and Therapeutic Compendium.

In nature, Lingzhi grows at the base and stumps of deciduous trees, especially maple (National Audubon Society; Field guide to Mushrooms,1993). Only two or three out of 10,000 such aged trees will have Lingzhi growth, and therefore its wild form is generally rare.

Lingzhi is nowadays effectively cultivated and sold in many Asian markets. Western health shops often stock extracts of Ganoderma Lucidum, labeled as 'lingzhi'; however, they sometimes belong to another type of the same family of mushroom, which do not have the full range of medicinal effects.